Aoife Murphy

Aoife is an experienced commercial litigator with a particular focus on intellectual property. She advises a wide range of indigenous and multinational clients on all aspects of intellectual property issues, patents, trademarks, copyright and design-related intellectual property matters. She is particularly experienced in multi-jurisdictional patent disputes and has acted in most of the patent cases that have come before the Irish Courts in recent years. She has acted in more patent related disputes in the Commercial Court list than any other practitioner in Ireland in the last number of years. She has also acted in most of the preliminary injunction applications in the Commercial Court list since 2018.

She has considerable experience in life science matters particularly medical devices, biosimilars and well as patents in other sectors. Aoife is involved in claims of infringement and revocation of patents and SPCs which protect pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biotechnology and electronic point-of-sale systems. She most recently represented MSD in an appeal before the Supreme Court, securing the first reference in a Patent/SPC matter from the Irish Court to the CJEU on the core issue in the appeal namely, the appropriate interpretation and application of Art 3(a) and 3(c) of Regulation in February 2022.

She has acted for manufacturers and brand owners in trade mark, passing off and unfair competition litigation. She also represents clients in copyright, licencing and ownership disputes. Aoife sits on the Intellectual Property Law Committee of the Law Society of Ireland. Aoife is co-author of The Legal 500 Country Comparative Guides – Ireland: Patent Litigation 2020-2023. She was also a co-author of the 2012-2018 ICLG International Comparative Legal Guides to Patents. She is co-author of “Technology & IP Law” (Tottell Publishing/Law Society of Ireland.)